No one can doubt the European credentials of Chichester: here we have a German version of a Goldoni comedy directed by an Italian and translated by an Englishman. The result is inevitably something of a mish-mash, but there is a good deal of fun to be had in picking out the separate national ingredients.
Goldoni's 18th-century fascination with masks and disguises is evident in the main story, which concerns two wives who come to Venice during carnival in pursuit of errant husbands: one a reckless gambler, the other a posturing seducer. But Rainer Werner Fassbinder's 1969 updating turns the play into a Germanic comment on a prevalent modern mercantile and pop culture. Every reference to money is accompanied by a list of current exchange rates and the spirit of the American Wild West pervades the coffee-house. Translator Jeremy Sams adds a decidedly English delight in double-entendre: "How big is his stipend?" someone asks of a peculiarly well-hung count.
This confluence of so many different traditions doesn't always make sense. Goldoni's dependence on class-pretensions, which allows a fake-count to tell a whore "I graced you with my nobility", has little resonance in the democratic 1960s. But what survives is the idea that the spirit of carnival both licenses and underscores the essential contradictions of human nature: servants lend money to masters, women pose as men, supposedly chaste wives turn out to be closet sex fiends. For all Fassbinder's cynicism about a society driven by money, the play turns into a celebration of human oddity and the blessings of disguise.
Simona Gonella's production also sits well in a Minerva Theatre that now comes equipped with a watery, translucent floor across which audience members tiptoed as if fearful of falling in. There are two outstanding performances: Barry McCarthy, as an old waiter who grub-stakes the profligate gambler and hands over his life-savings to a gossipy speculator, touchingly mixes gullibility and virtue. And Noma Dumezweni, as a gender-swapping wife in pursuit of a wandering husband, similarly implies the triumph of charity over revenge. When a character finally claims "life is as precious as the sun", you feel that the goodness of Goldoni will long outlive Fassbinder's satirical fury.
· Until August 24. Box office: 01243 781312.
